Friday, July 06, 2007

The San Francisco Chronicle has announced plans to cut the newsroom from 400 to 300. The San Jose Mercury News employed 400 journalists seven years ago and will soon have only 200 crashing the keyboards.

The San Francisco Chronicle bought out the contract of Sharks beat writer Ross McKeon, who has been covering the team since 1991. Also, Sharks beat writer Victor Chi is on the list of 31 San Jose Mercury News employees who were laid off on Monday.

The media has always been a difficult industry to break into and times are (or at least I'm told as someone relatively new on the scene) as difficult as they've ever been. The number of jobs in the print media on the sports side, in particular, has dropped dramatically and could fall further as American publications struggle with declining circulations.

This is tough news for not only the two reporters involved, but also Sharks fans who can expect much more wire-reliant coverage of their favourite team. As P.J. goes on to say in his post on the subject, "to lose two reporters the caliber of Ross McKeon and Victor Chi given the current negative media climate, the impact is going to be felt for a long time."

2 Comments:

"When a door closes, God opens a window". Yes, it is disturbing that newspapers like in SJ and LA are cutting back their hockey writers but if anything, the last year or so has shown the NHL is embracing the digital age with blogs and access. It remains to be seen if money can be made and thus support these guy's lives but there is a burgeoning digital hockey community which I think is supplanting print media.

We need newspapers. They're useful when painting, cleaning windows, and wrapping delicate items for moving. They're really handy when you have to construct a ransom demand but you don't have any pens in the house. And you can sometimes learn about sales at local retailers.Hockey writers? Not sure what they're good for.

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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